WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:17.240 [rock music] Mm, honey. It tastes just like it costs Well, welcome back to Tasteland. I am Francis Sierra. And I'm Daisy Alioto. 2 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.530 And today, we are sharing the recording of our live show from earlier this month. 3 00:00:23.240 --> 00:00:36.120 We were joined by three people from three worker-owned media companies that we really admire: Jasper Wang from Defector, Sam Cole from 404 Media, and Max Rivlin-Nadler from Hellgate. 4 00:00:36.720 --> 00:00:39.360 And by the way, Daisy, how much money did we raise and for who? 5 00:00:39.780 --> 00:00:52.740 We raised around $6,500 for a new legal aid fund for freelancers that the National Writers Union is incubating through their nonprofit arm, and we're hoping to raise 10K. 6 00:00:52.860 --> 00:01:02.280 You can still donate, but, uh, really happy with the 6,500 and climbing. And- We'll put the link in the show notes... put the donation link. Yeah- Yeah... in the show notes. I loved this conversation. 7 00:01:02.360 --> 00:01:07.280 This is one of the most substantive conversations I've had about the media business in a long time. 8 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:25.240 Hearing the way that the panelists are thinking about advertising and subscriptions was frankly helpful to me as a media operator, and it's just a reminder that even though we might have slightly different business models, we're all trying to solve the same problems. 9 00:01:25.800 --> 00:01:37.420 Mm-hmm. Um, so I learned a lot, and I hope that you guys learn a lot too. Yeah, they were all really transparent, really candid, uh, really quite generous with the details. [rock music] So yeah, I hope you enjoy it. 10 00:01:37.620 --> 00:01:51.220 Let's just get right into it. It tastes just like it costs Uh, thank you so much everyone for coming. We are the podcast Tasteland. 11 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:58.920 We're in our first year operating, and we like to cover issues involving technology, media, and marketing. 12 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:21.120 And so we thought a very timely topic would be worker-owned media, um, in conjunction with this fundraiser, which is raising funds for a legal aid fund for freelancers, uh, chasing non-payment and other forms of grievances, which is, uh, I'm a longtime freelancer, so it's a issue very close to my heart. 13 00:02:21.220 --> 00:02:31.860 Um, so we have three people with us today. I think we're gonna just let everyone introduce themselves and outsource the bios to you. But, um, I'm gonna pass to my co-host, Francis, first. 14 00:02:33.220 --> 00:02:47.380 Yeah, no, uh, thank you for coming. Uh, the theme tonight is definitely worker-owned journalism. There's... I, I see these three people and their publications as kind of like almost branches of one spiritual publication. 15 00:02:47.460 --> 00:02:55.890 I don't know if they would like if I said that, but, um, you know, different departments of worker-owned media in the city. So Jasper, pass it to you. 16 00:02:55.920 --> 00:03:05.320 I mean, I, we, Defector illegally sublets our, uh, office to Hellgate, so, um- [laughs]... there's plenty of cross-pollination. Uh, my name is Jasper Wang. 17 00:03:05.420 --> 00:03:16.519 I'm the, um, lead business person at, uh, Defector Media, the sports and culture, uh, website mostly. We have some podcasts. Uh, we're known for Normal Gossip on the podcast side. 18 00:03:17.160 --> 00:03:32.460 Um, we started in July 2020, so are in our fifth year. Uh, I am Sam Cole. I am one-fourth of 404 Media. We started in August 2023, um, so it's been a little over a year now. 19 00:03:33.060 --> 00:03:44.760 Uh, we write about tech, um, a little bit of science, anything that kinda intersects with, like, humans being affected by technology and those worlds, which is, I guess covers everything at this point. 20 00:03:44.780 --> 00:03:53.640 [laughs] Um, yeah, and yeah, we, um, we launched in large part because of the influence that we saw with, uh, Defector and Hellgate. 21 00:03:53.740 --> 00:04:03.560 I don't think we would've launched at all if we hadn't seen you guys doing it and rocking it first. So owe a lot to these guys, but yeah, that's us. Um, I'm Max. 22 00:04:03.860 --> 00:04:10.100 I'm a worker owner at Hellgate, which covers local news and politics in New York City. 23 00:04:10.220 --> 00:04:25.140 Um, you know, we started in May 2022, very much influenced by Defector and, uh, very much advised by them when we were just starting out and trying to figure out how to get this going. Um, and so far so good. 24 00:04:25.460 --> 00:04:30.280 Uh, it's been a very interesting few years in New York, so the timing was right. Yeah. 25 00:04:30.380 --> 00:04:40.940 So Jasper, looking into all three of your publications, you kind of stand out as, like, the only person who doesn't come from a journalism background, but you're an MBA guy. 26 00:04:40.969 --> 00:04:52.710 You're like the token business guy, and so I, in my, in my research, I kind of saw you as, like, the token business guy, again, for all three of these publications. To what extent is that true? 27 00:04:52.800 --> 00:05:04.280 Like, to what extent are you informing, um, you know, this kind of rising group of worker-owned publications on that side? Totally. Totally. He's our business guy too. 28 00:05:04.300 --> 00:05:16.120 [laughs] Um, I mean, I, I do think, uh, Defector, having started in 2020, uh, we sit at the intersection of a lot of conversations about this. 29 00:05:16.540 --> 00:05:31.960 Um, we are so lucky to be asked to advise on, uh, many different, uh, new independent media, corporately owned or not, uh, launches, and, uh, that's a great joy o- of the job. I mean, I... The... 30 00:05:32.380 --> 00:05:38.060 A frustration in some ways of my job is that I have a full-time job running my own company. 31 00:05:38.520 --> 00:05:48.800 And so, um, anytime somebody asks for time, I'm happy to give an hour at a time, but, and I'm, like, I will tell you literally everything that we did. I'm not telling you that is correct. 32 00:05:49.040 --> 00:06:01.980 I will be as transparent as I can be and tell you about our reasoning, but, um, y- it's sort of up to you to figure out if that works for you on first principles that you wanna follow. Um, uh, there certainly is that. 33 00:06:02.260 --> 00:06:06.840 Like, I spent 10 years at Bain & Company of Mitt Romney fame. I have a Wharton MBA. 34 00:06:07.380 --> 00:06:20.064 Uh, there are ways that I think-Structures, frameworks, sometimes just, like, a little bit of legal realism that I understand that is helpful. But by and large, what I always say when people ask is, like, 35 00:06:21.124 --> 00:06:34.464 most of this is just trial and error, and you just have to go out and see how it goes for yourself. And so a, a formal business education is overstated for this, but everybody is really just 36 00:06:35.484 --> 00:06:46.124 trying their best to fumble their way through this. Uh, trial and error. What were the biggest trials and errors when you were starting out? And then I'll pass it to y'all, uh, for the same question. 37 00:06:47.024 --> 00:07:03.244 Uh, one that I always point to that is, uh, always a frustration for me around tax time is Defector Media is an LLC that is entirely owned by a corporation. It's a New York LLC entirely owned by a Delaware corporation. 38 00:07:03.564 --> 00:07:15.804 I have to file taxes in New York and in Delaware. Early on, you just- an LLC costs like $150 to open in New York, so it just... it's like, okay, you now have a company. It's very easy to just, like, have a company. 39 00:07:15.864 --> 00:07:27.584 It's why shell companies exist, because it's so easy to just open a new company. And then we realize, actually, an LLC doesn't really accomplish what we need, and now we actually should just be a corporation. 40 00:07:28.264 --> 00:07:37.824 I still don't think that's right. Like, I've never talked to a lawyer who is like, "Oh, 100%, that's what you should have done." Like, I would love to dedicate 41 00:07:38.744 --> 00:07:46.404 12 hours sometime in the future and just call a bunch of different lawyers who have perspectives on cooperatively owned businesses and be like, "What is... Where is the state? 42 00:07:46.644 --> 00:07:56.684 What is the structure that we should register as, and we should tell other people to do that?" Like, we just sit here and pay all these taxes for no reason. And, um, it's... 43 00:07:57.384 --> 00:08:03.224 I, I get to tax time, and I'm like, "Oh, right, we, we messed this up early on, and I wish I had, uh, called a couple more people." 44 00:08:04.224 --> 00:08:11.764 Uh, but yeah, I would say my answer is gonna be a lot more vague than that because [laughs] we're only about a year old, so we've only had one tax season. 45 00:08:11.924 --> 00:08:26.304 Um, but, um, I think the biggest challenge that we kinda knew was gonna be a challenge going in, um, but you don't really know it until you're doing it, is we don't come from a business background at all, and we didn't hire a business guy, which was... 46 00:08:26.784 --> 00:08:35.584 I don't know if that was the right move or not. [laughs] It's yet to be seen. Um, but we're all from journalism backgrounds. We know how to do journalism very well. 47 00:08:35.764 --> 00:08:45.574 We have, you know, like, 40 years combined experience between the four of us or something. Um, so we just relied a ton on other people, on Jasper [laughs] uh, who was trying to run his own company. 48 00:08:46.204 --> 00:09:03.644 Um, and also just on, like, the, the kindness and goodness of, like, people who would give us 20, 30 minutes of time out of the day at a time, um, which it turned out to be a lot of people were willing to do that, which was probably one of the main reasons we s- we kept going when we did. 49 00:09:03.964 --> 00:09:14.244 Um, we had connections from Vice. Uh, we, you know, were able to, like, retain a lawyer early, early on, which was important because we write about some pretty hostile, litigious companies. 50 00:09:14.964 --> 00:09:18.184 Um, we were able to kinda get connections for, like, ad sales and things like that. 51 00:09:18.244 --> 00:09:30.364 So yeah, I mean, it's-- it was very much, like, learning on the fly, um, and learning as we did it, and probably fucking up a ton as we did it [laughs] in ways that we don't yet know, um, have happened yet. 52 00:09:30.424 --> 00:09:40.024 But yeah, it was, uh, a lot of our days consumed by business admin that we thought was gonna be kind of like, "Oh, we'll do that. We'll figure it out." 53 00:09:40.104 --> 00:09:50.844 But it was really just, like, trying to do all of that plus the journalism, which was honestly exhausting. It's-- I think maybe we're just used to it now, or there's less of it, or we just set it all up at first. 54 00:09:50.924 --> 00:10:01.364 But, um, yeah, it was definitely... That was really the hardest part is like, "Oh, shit, we're gonna be working, like, you know, 16 hours a day for a long time because we're doing multiple jobs all the time." 55 00:10:01.944 --> 00:10:14.624 But yeah, that was probably the, the biggest kind of shock for us. [laughs] Yeah, I mean, I'll piggyback on what Jasper said about the fact that, like, the state and the federal government, just [laughs] 56 00:10:14.834 --> 00:10:22.304 the state in general, does not understand worker-owned companies. Like, it doesn't acknowledge them in a way that makes any sense. 57 00:10:22.544 --> 00:10:35.244 Um, I think there are, like, rules for cooperatives, um, that are actually very complicated and tough to fit into, um, and very specific. And what we're doing is not really necessarily a cooperative. 58 00:10:35.273 --> 00:10:39.684 We're just a company that's owned by its workers, and not necessarily like... 59 00:10:40.224 --> 00:10:51.034 I've reported on a bunch of companies that, like, claim they're worker-owned or are doing worker ownership models, but what that means is, like, handing out shares or, like, dividends at some point, maybe, to workers. 60 00:10:51.124 --> 00:11:02.704 And, like, the owner gets a big splashy photo, um, being like, "Great job. You did it. It's worker-owned," and it's definitely not. Uh, so the state is not crazy about, um, our structure. 61 00:11:03.344 --> 00:11:12.944 And, you know, Jasper called up a gazillion lawyers. We've talked to a bunch of lawyers too, and they're all like, "Oh, wow. Interesting. Uh [laughs]..." 62 00:11:13.524 --> 00:11:21.804 And like, yeah, uh, we just know that we're overpaying our taxes just to make sure, like, "Please don't, don't get us in trouble 'cause we're trying." 63 00:11:22.864 --> 00:11:41.824 One conversation that I've had a lot or runs through a lot of threads on the podcast, and especially like, I mean, Sam, you cover artificial intelligence a lot, but, you know, post-AI, increasingly clear that, like, the internet, um, solved distribution for media. 64 00:11:41.874 --> 00:12:03.524 It didn't solve monetization, and a lot of the companies, like, I think, you know, a lot of us worked for them or freelanced for them, BuzzFeed and Vice, um, their, their success in the era of, like, traffic-based, click-based monetization was somewhat subsidized by venture capital as well. 65 00:12:03.574 --> 00:12:14.188 And if you look under the hood, like, it's actually very hard to create a sustainable media business, especially if you're notSubsidized by [chuckles] venture capital. 66 00:12:14.238 --> 00:12:22.308 And so, um, I think there are stopgaps around that, this idea of using social media to distribute. 67 00:12:22.338 --> 00:12:35.128 But to me at least, the bottom is falling out of social media distribution or algorithmic distribution, like even faster than I think even any of us thought it would, even those of us paying attention to technology. 68 00:12:35.268 --> 00:12:43.748 So it's a big question, but like how do you think about monetization? How do you think about the split between subscriptions and advertising revenue? 69 00:12:43.807 --> 00:12:54.748 And is there a secret third thing, or should there be a secret third thing in the mix as we move into this new era, which feels like extremely undefined? 70 00:12:55.848 --> 00:13:10.468 I mean, I can, I can just kind of give our like ethos on this a little bit. Um, so a couple months ago, we wrote a blog post, um, for 4/4 that the title, the headline was, "We Need Your Email Address." 71 00:13:10.798 --> 00:13:22.748 [chuckles] Um, and basically just kind of ran through the reasons why, uh, we were-- we felt like we were being kind of eaten alive by these AI algorithms that... 72 00:13:22.788 --> 00:13:32.118 And these algorithmic, algorithmic distribution models and also AI in particular, rewriting or just straight up ripping our stories and posting them automatically onto other websites. 73 00:13:32.718 --> 00:13:43.388 Um, which is a big problem when you're relying on a subscriber model because that's walled stuff that sub- subscribers, you know, have the, the right to see because they pay for it. 74 00:13:44.168 --> 00:13:49.428 Um, and then they can get it elsewhere, and it's like, what's the point? Uh, we also needed people to come to the website because we have ads. 75 00:13:49.548 --> 00:14:01.148 So it's like that's part of our, kind of, um, diversifying of our revenue is we weren't just gonna rely on subscribers because that can dry up. We can't just rely on clicks because that definitely will dry up. 76 00:14:01.678 --> 00:14:03.688 Um, so we kinda needed a little bit of everything. 77 00:14:04.308 --> 00:14:17.508 Um, so the point of that blog was basically, you know, we want to be able to run a company that gives our content directly to you, um, because you're interested, because you pay for it, uh, because you've shown that you want to be here. 78 00:14:18.008 --> 00:14:28.588 Um, and we can't do that unless we can get your eyeballs on this stuff very directly, and we can communicate with you in a very kind of direct one-on-one kinda way. Um, and people really resonated with that. 79 00:14:28.708 --> 00:14:41.908 I think that was probably like our biggest jump in, um, you know, signups, free and paid. Um, and yeah, it was, um... That problem keeps changing. Like the AI scrapers keep changing. We have like the, 80 00:14:42.968 --> 00:14:53.628 the Don't Scrape Us [chuckles] part of the website in there, but, um, they keep changing the way that that's done. So, um, it's more important than ever that people actually give us a way to talk to them. 81 00:14:54.208 --> 00:15:05.428 Um, and that was-- People really resonated with that, and I think people resonate in general with, um, transparency, which is something that we couldn't really provide at a big corporation, a big corporate kind of, um, media outlet like Vice. 82 00:15:05.708 --> 00:15:14.368 You know, we couldn't just speak directly to our audience because they were out there somewhere, but it was Vice, the company, between us. Um, so 83 00:15:15.288 --> 00:15:27.108 yeah, that's been a, that's been one of the biggest kinda problems that we've seen, um, and have been trying to kind of find these like workarounds as a company that we control. Um, yeah, I'm curious what you guys 84 00:15:28.008 --> 00:15:34.438 think about that question. I feel like it's a question we could talk about for the rest of the hour, but [laughs] It's a good one. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. 85 00:15:34.508 --> 00:15:42.948 I was jumping off in like a million different directions- [laughs]... when we were talking about that. But I, you know, that was like a seminal, uh, blog post 'cause we read that and we're like, "Absolutely." 86 00:15:43.048 --> 00:15:53.788 Like, we were thinking somewhere in here. But yes, we like... Emails are sticky. People still read emails that end up in your inbox. 87 00:15:53.828 --> 00:16:05.468 It is a great way to reach people, especially as social media, um, kind of falters or gets weird or becomes populated by evil spam bots and AI and things like that. 88 00:16:05.568 --> 00:16:38.428 And, you know, Daisy, you were asking about like how much to rely on subscriptions versus how much to rely on advertising, and I think basically all of us starting with like the proposition of like our human writing and reporting is valuable and is something that you should pay for is something that I think other attempts at creating sustainable revenue and sustainable forms of journalism and amidst our tacitly fallen state, um, refuse to do and have a tough time doing. 89 00:16:38.988 --> 00:16:51.368 And that, that's like never happened outside of PBS before. Like, the idea of that like, "No, no, news should be 100% free," um, is a recent, you know, last 15 years. 90 00:16:51.488 --> 00:17:00.948 Obviously, the internet did that, but before then it was like not a thing. Maybe the Village Voice being like, "Okay, things are going poorly. We won't charge anymore and just fill this with sex ads." 91 00:17:01.428 --> 00:17:14.248 But, you know, I mean, that's, that's-- I, I kinda go after them sometimes, but like I think that's a huge problem for nonprofit media is that they are totally reliant on grants that come with stipulations of you can never make people pay for this. 92 00:17:14.828 --> 00:17:29.848 It's like, that is not worth the $50,000 that you just got for filling out a giant grant application. I can promise you that. I- I'll often say at Defector, we actually were subsidized by maybe not venture capital money. 93 00:17:29.948 --> 00:17:34.648 I don't know if Gawker took what you would call venture capital money, but certainly subsidized by corporate media. 94 00:17:34.708 --> 00:17:48.088 I mean, all of my n- the, the founding group at Defector Media included me and 18 writers and editors who all quit Deadspin, the sports imprint under Gawker, in 2019. 95 00:17:48.558 --> 00:18:02.048 And they all built their personal platforms at Gawker, at Deadspin, and then we were able to build a subscription business around those platforms immediately. So I say that just to say, 96 00:18:03.088 --> 00:18:12.408 I think people impute that Defector is very, um, subscription-driven as a matter of principle, and that is not the case. 97 00:18:12.948 --> 00:18:29.528 It is because that was the best, easiest, most straightforward way for us to get money from day one.I am actually very agnostic about how media companies make their money. I, you know, I... The venture age is, is over. 98 00:18:29.688 --> 00:18:43.408 Uh, venture private equity financing doesn't work. But in terms of, like, revenue qua revenue, subscriptions, advertising, grants or philanthropy, affiliate, sponsor content. Like, 99 00:18:44.348 --> 00:18:58.588 I think the more people trying different mixes of revenue, the better it is for the independent media space. So Defector, again, we're s- we're still 80% subscription revenue. Um, I, I... 100 00:18:59.028 --> 00:19:13.708 That will never drop below, I don't know. Next year in, in, in my hope, in my dreams, we actually add a lot more advertising revenue. So maybe that is 70%, 60%, uh, next year or the year after. 101 00:19:14.277 --> 00:19:23.688 We're gonna be subscription forward just because that's what makes sense for us. I think that should be in the mix for most publications, but the, uh... 102 00:19:24.067 --> 00:19:30.988 I, I don't think you should be re- religious about that being first. Uh, Max, one thing we were talking about a little bit before was public funding. 103 00:19:31.128 --> 00:19:40.788 You kind of start touching on that with, uh, PBS, but I know there's a tax credit you guys are going after. Uh, I didn't know about any of this. Could you talk to some of the public funding? Yeah. 104 00:19:41.008 --> 00:19:57.208 New York State kind of, uh, incredibly right at the end of the budget negotiations, uh, this past spring, included a provision that will provide, um, I think at least $90 million over three years for local news. 105 00:19:57.328 --> 00:20:01.568 Uh, this is pretty much... There's been a few other attempts, but this is the m- most robust. 106 00:20:01.668 --> 00:20:23.028 California did something even weirder, uh, right after, and we could get into that, but, uh, New York is coming up with basically a tax credit that will directly subsidize local news outlets, um, which is awesome and exactly kind of like the mix that Jasper was talking about that will help local news outlets, uh, survive. 107 00:20:23.148 --> 00:20:34.748 Because, you know, as much as I was going a little bit after philanthropy, we take philanthropy. We love philanthropy, but... And, and there are interested parties that wanna help local news. We need that mix. 108 00:20:35.088 --> 00:20:45.728 And, um, public financing is o- you know, okay for literally every other industry. The film industry, green technology, they all get public subsidies. 109 00:20:46.148 --> 00:21:02.848 Why this has been, like, verboten for, you know, local news as if this is some sort of conflict of interest because there's been a lot of people who are like, "Oh, no, we shouldn't take money from the government 'cause we can't, you know, report, uh, conscientiously about politicians if, like, we're in favor of s- their legislation." 110 00:21:02.888 --> 00:21:12.428 Which is like, cool. Uh, I'll take that money then. You know? That... I've got no problem with it. Um, we will see how it works. Uh, they're much like everything in Albany. 111 00:21:12.488 --> 00:21:19.308 They pass something they have no idea what to do with or how to enforce and regulate, and there's a huge battle right now. 112 00:21:19.548 --> 00:21:25.728 Uh, they might have accidentally left out nonprofits from it, uh, which is a [chuckles] huge problem. 113 00:21:26.188 --> 00:21:37.808 Uh, even though we are not a nonprofit, uh, we, like, want other great local news outlets like The City and New York Focus to be able to get this money. Um, and you know, I think this is part of the mix. 114 00:21:37.908 --> 00:21:39.088 It's a total no-brainer. 115 00:21:39.708 --> 00:21:56.708 Um, and yeah, California tried something that would be even more radical, which would be going after the tech companies to pay their fair share, uh, for basically, uh, stealing, uh, content from news creators and then, uh, absolutely, uh, destroying the ad model for them. 116 00:21:57.048 --> 00:22:07.868 Uh, and instead, right at the last second, that got completely, uh, hijacked by Google and is now a weird AI, uh, subsidy bill and, uh, we'll see what happens there. 117 00:22:08.048 --> 00:22:22.308 But there's no AI funding in this tax credit, which is extremely cool. To me, it seems like the... not the only mistake, but the big mistake would be to say, "We'll never do this." You know? I think people... 118 00:22:22.788 --> 00:22:32.548 The subscription model and the relationship to the community that it has, like, generates a lot of goodwill, whereas ads just sort of have this stigma to them. 119 00:22:32.648 --> 00:22:37.868 And I understand the instinct to come out of the gate and say, "We'll never do ads, and that's why you should give us money." 120 00:22:38.488 --> 00:22:51.448 But then you realize you don't actually know yet how many people are gonna convert, and I think I've seen people make that mistake. But the other reason why it seems to be advantageous to be open is, like, what... 121 00:22:51.568 --> 00:22:57.988 These are small worker-owned businesses, but they're also essentially startups looking for product market fit. 122 00:22:58.108 --> 00:23:08.868 And to Jasper's point, like, coming out of Deadspin, you, you knew who your audience was, and you sort of had product market fit there and were able to translate it to this new entity. 123 00:23:08.908 --> 00:23:16.808 But the more you, you find out who's actually willing to pay and not just who says that they would pay or, like, your friends that are telling you do this or do that. 124 00:23:16.828 --> 00:23:27.228 Like, you're, you're so intimate with that audience that you discover, "Oh, well, we're selling news as a product, but maybe there's some other product that they need, and they're gonna tell us." 125 00:23:27.688 --> 00:23:32.748 And that product is revealed through what they read. Um, so I don't know. 126 00:23:32.788 --> 00:23:43.668 I'm interested in what you think about that and, like, what have you discovered about, like, your real core willing-to-pay audience that you might not have expected starting out? 127 00:23:44.528 --> 00:23:52.508 I think on the advertising piece, uh, I, I think that's spot on, Daisy. It, it, it, it gets a bad rep because I think we're all thinking of the... 128 00:23:53.508 --> 00:24:02.568 God, I'm not gonna say any particular websites on the record, but you know, the sort of like, oh boy, autoplay videos, drop-downs. You can barely read, um, the website. 129 00:24:03.468 --> 00:24:15.348 All sorts of research suggests that people don't mind advertising somehow. In some cases, they are perfectly happy to support you in that way, and you just want to meet people where they are in how they support you. 130 00:24:15.788 --> 00:24:23.388 I think that is sometimes frustrating when we have these conversations as an industry of like, oh, Pitchfork, um, you know, laid a bunch of people off. 131 00:24:23.468 --> 00:24:27.388 And people are like, "Well, that's what you get for not supporting Pitchfork." And it's like, what do you mean? They... 132 00:24:27.568 --> 00:24:42.096 Like, what I could do was buy a ticket to the Pitchfork Festival or I could read their websiteAnd I guess I could should turn off ad blocker, but like beyond that, what more was I supposed to do as a consumer of that in order to help them succeed? 133 00:24:42.616 --> 00:24:54.896 And as such, I think it's just the, the all the things I listed off, events, conferences, you know, what- whatever else there is in there in that mix, like it shouldn't take it completely off the table. 134 00:24:55.336 --> 00:25:01.226 I mean, I don't know. At this point, am I comfortable saying we're never gonna, uh, feed your data into an AI scraper? 135 00:25:01.296 --> 00:25:09.456 Like, I probably would say that, but beyond that, there's really nothing I would say, you know, that I wanna be on the record as saying we're never gonna do that. Yeah, I feel that. 136 00:25:09.476 --> 00:25:19.356 We, we pretty much from the beginning were like, "We, we don't really know how this is gonna go." Um, you know, it's a very small team, and we don't really know what's gonna happen, but we want it to succeed. 137 00:25:19.466 --> 00:25:27.876 And to succeed, we don't come from like a huge pile of savings. Like, you know, we're- we quit our full-time jobs to do this, um, including like all of our benefits and healthcare. 138 00:25:27.956 --> 00:25:39.795 So, um, we immediately were like, "Okay, how many different ways can we kinda keep this going?" And it was subscribers and advertisers in the beginning. And the way we do ads, it's not just like chump box shit. 139 00:25:39.916 --> 00:25:44.196 Like, I mean, I think there is prob- there was some of that in the beginning because we were getting it. You have to get it going. 140 00:25:44.296 --> 00:25:51.736 [laughs] And like you're, you're at the bottom of like the sales tier, so, you know, you're selling your ads for like decimal points of a penny. 141 00:25:52.296 --> 00:26:00.836 So it's bad, uh, at first, but now it's, you know, now that we're more established, the ads don't totally suck that you see on the site. Um, they're very minimal. 142 00:26:00.896 --> 00:26:11.516 We were very particular about being like very, um, light touch with the ads. Um, you can't, you can't look at vice.com now, I'll say it, um- [laughs]... and without your browser imploding. 143 00:26:11.976 --> 00:26:20.896 Um, you know, without ad- with AdBlock off, it just melts your fucking laptop. So we didn't want that, and we also were very picky about ads. 144 00:26:20.936 --> 00:26:32.176 Like, we have ads in the newsletter, and that's why free subscribers are so important because, um, they're the only ones who see the ads in the newsletter, and those ads are very much picked by us. 145 00:26:32.236 --> 00:26:40.636 Like, our advertisers are relevant to our audience, and they're not like scummy companies that we don't wanna see, you know, run. And we also get lots of feedback on those ads. 146 00:26:40.656 --> 00:26:51.036 Like, people tell us when they're like, "You know, we don't ever wanna see that ad again." [laughs] "But, you know, we don't mind them in general." Um, so yeah. I think that's, that's like what you guys have been saying. 147 00:26:51.076 --> 00:27:00.956 It's exactly right. It's like, um, I think there's like this expectation of like purity from the audience sometimes of like, "Oh my God, you're running ads, so like are you really subscriber funded?" It's like, yeah. 148 00:27:00.976 --> 00:27:13.256 It's like 99% [laughs] of our funding comes from subscribers, but, you know, we also have to have this kinda like backup that helps us actually keep this thing going, um, in case the bottom falls out. 149 00:27:13.436 --> 00:27:15.576 So that's our approach anyway. Yeah. 150 00:27:15.656 --> 00:27:31.736 Speaking about responding to what subscribers want and kind of finding out, um, you know, we, we try to avoid a bit of the like parasocial relationship of like our, um, you know, subscribers are identifying with us specifically as opposed to the publication. 151 00:27:32.216 --> 00:27:45.796 But I think what's really important, and we've only been talking about business here, but like Defector, 404, I Like to Think, Colgate, has really fucking good writing that people like reading, and that is increasingly rare on the internet. 152 00:27:45.976 --> 00:27:57.896 And I think that actually is, talking about like the VC funding that Jasper was talking about, is like we all cut our teeth in this insane 2010s digital explosion of publications that came crashing down. 153 00:27:57.936 --> 00:28:04.816 But we all put in stupid hours being like, "Here is a 300-word blog post," um, and got really good at that. 154 00:28:05.136 --> 00:28:26.496 Uh, and I think there is a sticky generation of readers who that's pretty much kind of what they're gonna be looking for, is like who's somebody who I like and who I know is paying more attention than me because that's what I'm paying them to do is with my subscription money, um, and can tell me what to think or like how to understand something. 155 00:28:26.576 --> 00:28:34.936 I'm not gonna say like, "We're gonna tell you how to think," but like something happened, or we found something out, and here's how you understand it, and it can help shape your world and your understanding of things. 156 00:28:35.516 --> 00:28:49.656 Um, and people really appreciate that. And I think, um, good writing is really important and often let out, like totally left out when we're talking about local sustainable journalism or sustainable news outlets. 157 00:28:49.696 --> 00:29:01.936 It's like, well, is the writing good? Like, is this enjoyable to read? Is this something that people want to pay for, um, is a really important part. And, and we're seeing that when we interact with our subscribers. 158 00:29:01.976 --> 00:29:14.456 They're like, "I crack up about this very... You know, you guys crack me up, uh, even though it's all fucking depressing and sucks." Yeah. Um, speaking of fucking depressing and sucks- [laughs]... 159 00:29:14.466 --> 00:29:36.836 uh, Sam, you guys put out a post shortly after the election that you'd seen a big drop in people or a spike in people canceling their subscriptions and saying like, "Oh, I'm feeling unmotivated by the election, and like I don't feel like I can support journalism right now," or something, which was surprising to me because I thought people would be like increasing subscriptions. 160 00:29:36.876 --> 00:29:51.385 Like, I read Slate saw like a 7X increase in subscriptions. The Guardian also. It's like, yeah. Yeah. Well, did, have people come back? I mean, [laughs] yeah. So when you unsubscribe, we wanna know why. 161 00:29:51.496 --> 00:29:56.056 [laughs] So we leave a little box that says, you know, "Give us feedback," or, "Tell us why you're leaving." 162 00:29:56.156 --> 00:30:02.196 Um, you're not required to fill it out, but people were putting in that box, it was like the day after the election, people were putting in it like, "Depressed." 163 00:30:02.556 --> 00:30:10.116 [laughs] And it's like if it makes you feel better to like clean out your subscriptions and like have that be like a productive thing, like that's great. Go for it. 164 00:30:10.176 --> 00:30:18.656 We're not gonna be like, you know, um, "We're sad to see you go, but we're not gonna hold it against you." But at the same time, it was kind of like- [laughs]... it was confusing. It was surprising to us also. 165 00:30:18.776 --> 00:30:23.096 Um, and yeah, a lot of people were definitely like, "I can't handle looking at the news anymore." 166 00:30:23.226 --> 00:30:31.556 And it's like, well, it's everywhere, so you should probably, I don't know, pick some news that you can handle, [laughs] uh, or that you trust at least. 167 00:30:32.216 --> 00:30:36.716 Um, so yeah, that was, um, that was the, just for the, for the blog post you were talking about. 168 00:30:36.796 --> 00:30:46.676 We write a lot of blogs that are just like, "Hey, here's what's up," um, just talking directly to our readers, which we found to be very effective, um, 'cause people wanna know what's going on, uh, with this company that they're supporting. 169 00:30:47.356 --> 00:30:58.364 Um, yeah, I mean, I, um-I would encourage you to go read it if you're curious about, like, what the whole thing says. It's like 1,500 words or something of us just [laughs] like ranting kind of. 170 00:30:59.044 --> 00:31:03.064 Um, but we wanted to kinda lay it out there that, like, we're not going anywhere. 171 00:31:03.184 --> 00:31:13.724 We're gonna keep doing the work that we've been doing for the past, you know, 10 years career-wise, but also, like, spe- specifically we were doing the same work when Trump was elected in 2016. 172 00:31:14.084 --> 00:31:18.044 We did it for four years after that. We did it for the four years during the Biden administration. 173 00:31:18.524 --> 00:31:25.404 We s- wrote some of our biggest scoops and our most impactful stories dur- during the Biden administration, kind of digging into, um, 174 00:31:26.324 --> 00:31:33.124 you know, what, what was going on there and then we're not gonna just, like, throw our hands up and be like, "Oh, we're tired now because Trump's elected." 175 00:31:33.204 --> 00:31:43.104 Like, we have to keep [laughs] doing the same stuff 'cause, one, we don't know what else to do. We don't have any other skills. And two, it's like people wanna want to be informed in a way that they... 176 00:31:43.304 --> 00:31:44.944 It's, you know, it's like what, what Max said. 177 00:31:44.984 --> 00:31:54.664 It's like they want to actually read s- read stories that are well-written and that provide that context to what's going on in the world, 'cause the world is very confusing, hard to understand a lot of the time. 178 00:31:55.284 --> 00:31:59.804 Um, and yeah, it's like we were just very upfront with people. Like, "This is what we've done. 179 00:32:00.104 --> 00:32:09.824 Here's all of the impact that we've had in the last four years or something, in the last year as a company, and here's what we intend to keep doing." Um, so yeah, that was... It was just kind of... 180 00:32:09.884 --> 00:32:22.514 It wasn't so much like a, "Rah, rah, let's get after this." Like, it was not like this toxic positivity thing, but it was just kind of like, "Hey, if you wanna stick around, you're in for, like, continued good work. 181 00:32:22.944 --> 00:32:32.484 Um, and if you don't wanna stick around, that's, you know, that's fine." But yeah, I don't know. I'm curious what you guys have kind of found in the last w- week or two, um, if people are, like, 182 00:32:33.524 --> 00:32:46.884 I don't know, responding to, to you guys in a different way or no. Uh, at Defector we have, like, a f- a good week of new subscriptions, but not a spike. We didn't see a huge spike in cancellations. 183 00:32:46.964 --> 00:32:51.284 I mean, most of the... I mean, we, we have culture and politics on the site, but we're largely sports. 184 00:32:51.484 --> 00:33:02.233 So in some way we might be catching some of the runoff of, like, "Well, maybe I'm just gonna follow NBA coverage instead of, um, you know, hard news." Uh, I mean, we haven't positioned ourselves. 185 00:33:02.344 --> 00:33:13.284 We have a message to the readers of, um, you know, like, does... To are we doubling down? Are we, you know, this is our promise to you after this election. So I, I, I think 186 00:33:14.224 --> 00:33:29.064 the, the, the downstream thing that we are finding most interesting is Twitter continues to degrade as a source of ambient new traffic. Was it, was it 404? Did you guys write about, like, your hard data? 187 00:33:29.124 --> 00:33:37.384 We wrote about Blue Sky. Yes. Okay. So I mean, we're, we're, we're over on Blue Sky. We- we're seeing just a lot of lift there. 188 00:33:38.044 --> 00:33:46.524 And like, uh, r- even despite w- whatever small couple million compared to the hundreds of millions that are on Twitter, like we're getting a lot more engagement on our stuff. 189 00:33:46.844 --> 00:33:54.744 And, um, specifically, uh, sports Twitter has been very sticky on Twitter, so only lately have they started moving over to Blue Sky. 190 00:33:55.384 --> 00:34:03.164 Um, and so that's an interesting conversation we're having of like, uh, the old Twitter growth hacking playbook. 191 00:34:03.384 --> 00:34:21.284 Uh, can we dust that off a little bit, pretend that it's 2013 again and, like, you know, sort of engagement, uh, not engagement farm, that's a, a very negative word, but like, you know, sort of like grow our voice on Blue Sky and use that as the next place to get, um, the additional new traffic coming in. 192 00:34:21.904 --> 00:34:34.544 TBD on that. Um, the, you know, I wish Twitter weren't such garbage, but that's just the downstream effect we're seeing. Yeah, we've seen a, a pretty healthy bump since the election. 193 00:34:34.824 --> 00:34:46.844 Um, I think that's a lot of like, you know, when much like in 2016, people kinda go into, like, fortress New York mentality of like, "Okay, well, what can our leaders do, uh, to, to kinda lead the way?" 194 00:34:47.404 --> 00:34:50.484 Uh, don't look too closely. It's... They're not gonna do much. 195 00:34:51.084 --> 00:35:04.084 [laughs] Uh, and, you know, we're in a really unique position here of, like, Eric Adams, you know, actively trying to, you know, gain favor with an incoming administration to save his own, uh, liberty. 196 00:35:04.594 --> 00:35:15.824 Uh, so, uh, I think people are very interested in how this is gonna play out. We have a mayoral election in, in six months. You know, the timing of all these things, it's cool that people are turning to us. 197 00:35:16.144 --> 00:35:28.124 Um, you know, we're still just six reporters, uh, hopefully a few more, but like, uh, it's, it's a tall order, uh, in a rapidly developing situation. But people have come to us, and, and Blue Sky's been rad. 198 00:35:28.204 --> 00:35:38.244 That's, that's cool. Uh, I haven't dug around too much into who, how evil they are or in what way they will become compromised. But, uh, better not to look too much. 199 00:35:39.644 --> 00:35:52.584 Yeah, I think nothing certain except death, taxes, and the, the social platform you somewhat rely on your income for will be canceled at some point. Yeah. Um, it strikes me that there's almost like, 200 00:35:53.764 --> 00:36:07.924 uh, I, you know, coming again out of the election and when you have, like, The New York Times highlighting these conversations with swing state voters, or, like, people on the fence and they make the decision at the last minute, and it's like they give their reasoning and it's like, that makes no sense. 201 00:36:08.434 --> 00:36:09.944 They're, like, vibes voters. 202 00:36:10.404 --> 00:36:21.264 But I also have, like, long suspected that there's something like a vibes subscriber, where if you ask them, like, why they pay or don't pay, like, the reasoning really does not make sense to anyone but them. 203 00:36:21.844 --> 00:36:36.764 And, like, Max, to your point, there's people who are paying, not for the long form journalism, but for the somewhat parasocial relationship they have to the humor that's embodied in the blogs that remind them of, like, reading Gawker at their desk job. 204 00:36:37.334 --> 00:36:48.344 And I know for a fact there's Dirt subscribers where if I said, "Will you pay $60 a year?" They would say no. But you ask, "Would you buy two $30 baseball hats this year?" And they say, "Yes." 205 00:36:48.804 --> 00:37:00.160 And it's like, "Wow, you are one interesting chica." [laughs] Or, you know, the New York Times person that's, like, paying for gaming or cooking, but they won't pay for, like-Long-term reporting about the climate. 206 00:37:00.700 --> 00:37:04.600 Um, and I think I, I would be interested to hear from you. 207 00:37:04.720 --> 00:37:21.500 I know we've been talking about subscribers for a while, but just on the matter of, like, messaging, that you could say to somebody, "This is, like, a $5 coffee," but millennials especially, like, are so turned off by that idea 'cause they're like, "That's my $5 coffee." 208 00:37:21.560 --> 00:37:30.380 Well, it's probably $7 [laughs] now. Yeah. "That's my $7 cold brew." Like, paying for your journalism is entirely different and cannot be substituted. 209 00:37:30.940 --> 00:37:37.700 Just like we went through the messaging period of, like, just don't buy avocado toast, and eventually you can have a house. 210 00:37:37.780 --> 00:37:54.280 So I'm just curious, like, have you thought about your messaging and, like, slicing and dicing this in a way that's like, oh, you know, how do we, like, reach the person who's, like, just gonna buy merch and maybe they spend $100 on it, but they're not even paying for the writing itself? 211 00:37:55.220 --> 00:38:07.340 Yeah. I mean, I'll just real quick be, you know, I think there are a, a healthy portion of our subscribers are, uh, supporting us 'cause of the model. I think, you know, we see big bumps when we do our annual report. 212 00:38:07.400 --> 00:38:16.780 We see, like, big bumps when we get earned media. Uh, like a profile being like, "Here's what they're doing. This is their model." And, you know, people who are not in New York subscribing. 213 00:38:16.980 --> 00:38:19.880 And, you know, uh, those are probably at some point gonna go away. 214 00:38:20.100 --> 00:38:30.840 You know, if we luckily were able to make it, you know, a few years, and it looks like we are here to stay, I think people would kind of, like, less be interested in, like, oh, it's worker-owned and they're trying something new. 215 00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:39.260 It's like hopefully a thousand flowers bloom, and we're just one of many worker-owned news outlets, and those people will go away. Um, and we gotta pre- prepare for that. 216 00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:49.860 But I think, you know, we are selling the model in addition to our coverage, and I think we do that in a way that maybe some other places don't, um, because we found really early on, like, that lever works. 217 00:38:50.040 --> 00:39:08.059 People like what we're saying, and they're sick of losing their local news outlets because of, like, the avarice or weirdness of a billionaire or, um, you know, that the guy who owns it is, like, uh, an evil political, you know, uh, functionary in the area or something like that. 218 00:39:08.120 --> 00:39:11.880 So yeah, I think, I think a lot of people are glomming onto the model. 219 00:39:12.300 --> 00:39:21.940 Um, and it would be interesting to see when that tradition takes, transit- transition takes place of people basically being like, "I'm subscribing for the news. Oh, what, you're worker-owned? I didn't even know." 220 00:39:22.860 --> 00:39:32.120 Um, and that might be a, a day of reckoning. We'll find out. Yeah. I, I hear that. Um, I think a lot of people s- subscribe to 414 in particular because they, 221 00:39:33.100 --> 00:39:43.440 they're sick of seeing, like, all their favorite journalists get laid off. Um, you know, we, we came from, we all came from Vice and, you know, Vice was going through a bankruptcy when we launched. 222 00:39:43.520 --> 00:39:53.160 So it was very much just like, "We're launching this new thing because this old way is not working. It didn't work for them. It's not working for so many other companies, so help us try something new." 223 00:39:53.800 --> 00:40:01.740 Um, and that's kind of the way we rode in the beginning, and it's like, is that gonna actually stick? Is it gonna... Are people gonna stick around now? 224 00:40:01.840 --> 00:40:10.920 And we hope that it's like, now that you're here, we're gonna prove it to you all the time that it's worth staying. And you have to really bug people. You have to keep telling people, "This is why you should stay." 225 00:40:11.640 --> 00:40:19.560 Um, we- at first we were very shy. We were like, "I don't know if we should be emailing people all the time." And now we're like, "Email them every day. Email them twice a day." 226 00:40:19.640 --> 00:40:26.520 [laughs] No, we don't do twice a day, but, like, I know some people do. And it's like, it's you have to be in people's faces because they're getting a lot of noise everywhere else. 227 00:40:26.740 --> 00:40:35.100 You can't just be, like, in the corner like, "Whoa, we're, we're a company over here. Like, please subscribe to us." [laughs] So yeah, and the parasocial thing is it's definitely, it's real. 228 00:40:35.160 --> 00:40:46.560 I mean, I think that's something that we had to kind of have a learning curve about was when to listen to subscribers and when to kinda weigh, like, criticism versus, like, you actually know what you're talking about. 229 00:40:47.400 --> 00:40:54.670 Um, you know, people give us unsolicited advice all the time. People openly root for us to fail all the time [laughs] which is wild to see at first. 230 00:40:54.920 --> 00:41:07.220 Um, and yeah, it's like weighing what's worthwhile advice from someone who knows what they're talking about versus just someone who's, like, ripping off an email at you because they had an idea when they saw your email in their inbox. 231 00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:12.560 It's like, you know, is that worth listening to? Is that a waste of time? Is it a waste of time for us to get together and talk about it even? 232 00:41:13.080 --> 00:41:19.860 So yeah, that's, um, that's kinda the, that's, that's the vibes that we, we have [laughs] is people who are like, "We need to see something new. 233 00:41:19.960 --> 00:41:35.580 This is a positive, optimistic thing in a industry that's very much collapsing." I mean, Defector at this point is four plus years, and we are at a size that is, you know, 40,000 plus subscribers. So it's... 234 00:41:36.900 --> 00:41:43.880 I'm sure a good PR person would tell me this is completely the wrong approach, but I think for us it's a little bit like 235 00:41:44.920 --> 00:41:55.680 you put all the messages out there, and not every one is gonna resonate with the every person who might subscribe. But hopefully some of them, some resonate with some people some of the time. 236 00:41:56.340 --> 00:42:06.120 So, you know, we, we, in our subscription appeals and our messaging, sometimes we are very journalism first. It's just like, "This is the big feature we had last month that everybody loves. 237 00:42:06.220 --> 00:42:14.360 Let's put that back in people's faces." Sometimes it is model-driven. Sometimes it is, you know, very much leaning into the parasocial element of it. 238 00:42:14.880 --> 00:42:24.180 Um, I think it's, it would be very fair criticism to say we actually haven't segmented, uh, the people and the profiles of, like, who's trying to get to what. 239 00:42:24.640 --> 00:42:35.440 But, you know, we have whatever, 300,000 email, um, email, uh, f- free email, email addresses on our free email list, and we just, we just send it out there, man. 240 00:42:35.500 --> 00:42:42.380 And, you know, sometimes it's like, ooh, a lot of people did not like that. Like, a, a couple thousand people unsubscribed from that. They thought that was not the right message. 241 00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:53.960 And it's like, okay, well, you know, that also drove 50 new subscribers, so, like, what's the trade there? I don't have a good answer to that, but it is still very much just a little bit more scattershot. 242 00:42:56.080 --> 00:43:11.968 One other thing about, you know, subscribers is I think-Looking at these new companies, uh, that are worker-owned or worker-led, when people subscribe to them or make a donation or give them money, they know that the money is going to journalism, and that's really important. 243 00:43:12.028 --> 00:43:21.428 Like, we are very transparent. Like, "This is where the money went. This is how much we paid freelancers. This is how much we paid us. This is how many posts we did." Um, you know, when you give to large... 244 00:43:22.728 --> 00:43:35.028 I, I worked at NPR for many years. Uh, and when you give to that station, I could tell you the, you know, 15 other people this money will go to before it even comes close to going to the newsroom. 245 00:43:35.328 --> 00:43:45.788 And, uh, listen, you know, they could go on during the telethons and stuff and say like, "Give us money. This goes to power the journalism that you want," and that's just not true. 246 00:43:46.208 --> 00:43:54.148 Because why would that be the case that every time, uh, there's a budget crunch and they make those appeals, journal- journalists still get laid off? 247 00:43:54.788 --> 00:44:05.007 So I think, you know, it's not only people believing in the model, it's that actually people are being savvy about that their money is going to journalism, and that's not something you can trust in, in other places. 248 00:44:06.428 --> 00:44:25.968 Um, in terms of the editorial choices you're all able to make as opposed to the choices you had to make at previous more, like, institutional publications, um, I'm thinking of, like, a couple totally independent, like, just solo operation type of people I've spoken to recently who were saying, like, "I love being on my own because I can put my personality into it. 249 00:44:26.068 --> 00:44:31.468 I don't have to, like, pretend at some neutrality when I'm reporting on an issue that, like, affects me personally." 250 00:44:32.148 --> 00:44:44.328 Um, yeah, to the extent that, like, it's different running your own publications and having the full freedom in it, being journalist-led. Is there such a big difference in, like, the exact type of story you're reporting? 251 00:44:45.108 --> 00:44:53.728 I don't think there's a huge difference for us. It's not a major difference. I mean, we, we were very lucky at Motherboard that we were pretty much left alone. 252 00:44:53.828 --> 00:45:04.348 It was kind of like, you know, Vice is over there blowing shit up and Motherboard is doing okay, so they just kind of let us stay under the radar. Um, but, 253 00:45:05.368 --> 00:45:21.408 yeah, I think that's in part because, um, Jason Keebler and Emmanuel Maiberger, who are two others of Four4f, they were editing and leading and managing Motherboard and they carried those kind of skills over to Four4f, and they were like, "We can spot when this is a wor- a worthwhile story." 254 00:45:21.488 --> 00:45:30.148 You know, myself and Joseph Cox also have that kind of intuition. So it wasn't a huge shift for us, but at the same time I don't think any of us would have done this by ourselves. 255 00:45:30.248 --> 00:45:42.128 I think that we all recognize that we need an editor and we need other people to kind of bounce things off of and to workshop things with and to say, "Is this worth doing? Is this too in the weeds? Is it, you know... 256 00:45:42.168 --> 00:45:53.748 Is there a conflict here? What's going on?" Um, and without that, I don't know, I don't know what, how they do it at, you know, like, really small kind of like one-person show, like the Substack model. 257 00:45:53.788 --> 00:46:04.248 It's like I- that scares me. Um, you know, it's, I think I admire that they're able to do that but [laughs] I wouldn't be able to do it personally. Um, I need like, we all, all of us need an editor. 258 00:46:04.588 --> 00:46:14.267 Um, and it's not just like editing commas out of your draft. It's directionally, it's, you know, talking through sourcing, it's things like that. 259 00:46:14.848 --> 00:46:24.228 Um, when things get really hairy you need a team around you to kind of say, "Okay, um, you know, how do we handle this?" So yeah, that's, um, that's what we do. 260 00:46:24.308 --> 00:46:31.128 I don't know, it's not massively different but it's, we were in a unique kind of situation. Not too much to add there. 261 00:46:31.208 --> 00:46:48.988 But I, you know, I would say back in, a- again, going back to the days of, of Gawker and stuff, like I was a night editor at like the peak of its popularity where like each, uh, post would get like 500,000 views which is like, man, woo, different days. 262 00:46:49.468 --> 00:47:00.668 Uh, and I was just allowed to write in the CMS and post directly to the internet, uh, which is insane. I was 20- You're too wild for that... I was 20, I was 24. I knew no better. Uh- [laughs]... 263 00:47:00.688 --> 00:47:09.308 yeah, and, and it was bad. That's bad. [laughs] Don't do that. It was a disservice to me. It was like not great to the readers. I learned a lot. 264 00:47:09.468 --> 00:47:19.427 I learned how to be a better writer but also like, you know, we need these structures and, and that's something I love is like getting to work with great editors and, and that's like extremely important. 265 00:47:19.548 --> 00:47:33.708 Defector, uh, has great editors on staff. Um, and like, yeah, uh, it's, it's, we're, we're stronger together with more ideas. And I know a lot of the great Substacks have editors. 266 00:47:33.868 --> 00:47:38.728 You know, the, the, the idea of this person in the void. Although we definitely know the ones that don't have editors. 267 00:47:38.888 --> 00:47:50.088 It's very apparent, and that doesn't mean they're not successful, it's just this is straight off the dome. [laughs] I, I have no say in editorial decisions so I, I can't really speak to it directly. 268 00:47:50.168 --> 00:48:00.288 But I will say one part of this that is sort of the flip side of, of what you're saying, Frances, is if we get sued, we get sued. Like, it's just us getting sued. 269 00:48:00.388 --> 00:48:08.568 Like it's not like there's some, you know, like big legal apparatus to save you from that. And I was talking recently to, like... 270 00:48:09.088 --> 00:48:16.648 I, I got a bill from our First Amendment lawyer for $10,000 and I was like, "What the fuck?" And then I was like, "What, what was this article topic?" 271 00:48:16.688 --> 00:48:25.508 And they told me the article and I'm trying to keep a straight face 'cause, again, I don't have say in editorial, um, decisions but I was like, "Oh wow, okay. We spent $10,000 on that." 272 00:48:26.048 --> 00:48:31.848 And uh, I subsequently heard the, the, the staff writer talk about it and just like 273 00:48:32.948 --> 00:48:43.088 it was a really miserable editing and reporting experience because he was like, "These are litigious people who might come after us, and we wanna be extra super-duper careful." 274 00:48:43.808 --> 00:48:58.708 And actually are we more likely to, uh, cut stuff that they're asking for than if we were under a corporate structure where like that's not my money, it's not my problem? S- the, the story is all it is. 275 00:48:59.148 --> 00:49:01.248 And so I don't know that I... 276 00:49:01.368 --> 00:49:13.462 I'm not, uh, trying to make a value judgment either way and it's just, you know, another dimension of being a, a writer-owner is you, you really do have to care about-Um, all those extra effects of, of what goes into your writing 277 00:49:14.752 --> 00:49:20.572 Yeah, I would say, yeah, maybe that is a way that we do it differently. Or, like, not super differently, but, like, it's a- it's something that's in the back of our minds for sure. 278 00:49:20.612 --> 00:49:30.352 It's like one crazy lawsuit could ruin us, you know, professionally and personally. [laughs] Um, and that wasn't the case at any of the big companies that we ever worked at. 279 00:49:30.472 --> 00:49:44.672 You know, it's like, like I said, we pay for a lawyer because we need one. Um, and she's been very kind with her time, but they're not cheap. Um, so yeah, we don't shy away or pull punches, but, um, it's definitely... 280 00:49:44.692 --> 00:49:53.812 It's, it's in the back of our minds for sure that that's the case. Yeah. Just adding on there, it's like we love working with freelancers, and they're great. 281 00:49:54.052 --> 00:50:02.992 And we indemnify them, so [laughs] that's a, a whole other thing is, like, you know, maybe they wanna push the envelope, but the person who gets sued is, like, us and our business. 282 00:50:03.172 --> 00:50:07.912 And when I was a freelancer and when I was a staffer at bigger places, like, I didn't care. Mm-hmm. You know? 283 00:50:08.292 --> 00:50:16.552 I wasn't doing bad-ass shit, but, like, you know, it would be like, all right, if th- they get sued, then they get sued. Not me. Not anymore. Yeah. 284 00:50:16.622 --> 00:50:22.892 And for the places that don't indemnify, that's why we need [laughs] a legal aid fund for freelancers, which is the reason we're all here. 285 00:50:23.032 --> 00:50:36.602 Um, yeah, I mean, there's really no paying, like, a $10,000 legal bill or sending a $500 email and being like, "Oh, that was, that was... I, I could've figured that out on Google." [laughs] Mm-hmm. Um, but I... 286 00:50:37.152 --> 00:50:40.832 Max, you said something about, like, you know, 10,000 flowers blooming. 287 00:50:40.912 --> 00:50:51.512 Basically, like, if the messaging of worker-owned media collectives is successful, if you are able to lend your expertise to other people and they're successful, you... 288 00:50:51.552 --> 00:51:00.032 It's not like you're eating into your own market share, but the novelty of subscribing just because of the model is a little bit less compelling. 289 00:51:00.652 --> 00:51:06.892 Um, and one thing that we've talked about a lot on the podcast is, like, these cycles of, like, bundling and unbundling. 290 00:51:07.172 --> 00:51:21.982 I think the solo operator Substacks and media collectives, obviously not quite the same, but of smaller teams are a part of this unbundling period. At a certain point, like, the rebundling happens. 291 00:51:22.092 --> 00:51:33.392 Maybe it happens with, you know, acquisitions or joining forces or, you know, taking advantage of economies of scale by saying, like, "Well, let's all join in the same ad network," or something. 292 00:51:33.412 --> 00:51:50.892 But, um, I'm just curious, like, how you sort of resolve that tension that like, okay, realistically, like, if somebody without the inertia of mass quitting a site like Deadspin wants to spin up a worker-owned media collective tomorrow, and they wanna cover sports, 293 00:51:51.852 --> 00:52:02.012 it's a factor that Defector already exists, and they would not be able to just run the same playbook. And of course, that's always the case. 294 00:52:02.112 --> 00:52:15.852 But is it particularly the case when you are leading, like, with your business model? Yeah, I mean, it, it, it... The subscription fatigue has been a phrase that people have talked about for several years now. 295 00:52:15.932 --> 00:52:22.901 You know, they're often talking about, like, the Netflixes of the world, and I've... For a while, my answer was like, "Well, we're not trying to add a million subscribers." Mm-hmm. 296 00:52:22.901 --> 00:52:33.992 "Like, we're just trying to convince the next thousand people to give us money, and there should be plenty of, of, of market to, to g- uh, go and chase." I, I... As the years go by, I, I do 297 00:52:34.952 --> 00:52:43.112 feel that myself of, like, the number of Substacks that I pay for out of pocket, some of which I, I never read, and I'm just supporting the people. 298 00:52:43.872 --> 00:52:56.392 And I, I do think that is a real tension, I think, but thankfully we're just not... I just don't think we're approaching that point because, I mean, I talk to, like I said, I- 299 00:52:57.692 --> 00:53:10.852 most worker-owned publications, let's call it even independent-owned publications, do end up emailing me and asking for advice, uh, at some point, and when they actually launch, it's, it's a joy. 300 00:53:11.012 --> 00:53:18.132 It's d- Hellgate launching, 404. We actually didn't talk before you guys launched, but we talked, like, the week after you guys launched. We could've talked before. [laughs] Yeah. 301 00:53:18.212 --> 00:53:28.732 Uh, uh, Minnesota Racket, uh, uh, The Appeal relaunched. Uh, I... There's a, a good handful here that it, it's, it's such a joy when that happens. There are... 302 00:53:29.802 --> 00:53:36.272 I have a conversation every month that doesn't lead to anything. I've had dozens of conversations with people who think about it and, and don't chase it. 303 00:53:36.652 --> 00:53:45.632 And so, you know, if half of those people start chasing it, I might sort of, you know, have a more better mental framework for the exact question you're asking, Daisy. 304 00:53:46.052 --> 00:53:56.791 But for now, I'm sort of like, we're just, I don't think we're approaching that place yet in independent media. Yeah, I mean, for us, because we are local, and I think we're maybe tackling a different... 305 00:53:57.392 --> 00:54:09.052 E- Even though, you know, I think spiritually we're more Village Voice than, um, you know, Star-Ledger, um, we are filling a, a, a gap in local news. 306 00:54:09.172 --> 00:54:21.752 And I honestly, there are other places that are launching, uh, like The 51st in DC. Obviously, Racket in Minneapolis already exists. They rock. Um, a bunch, a few other places are beginning. 307 00:54:22.272 --> 00:54:41.212 I think we're beginning to coalesce around, like, kinda common practices and, and good ideas for how to make, uh, scalable, sustainable local newsrooms, um, that to this point are being extremely ignored by the people with a lot of money, who are like, "We need to get local news revitalized. 308 00:54:41.252 --> 00:54:43.052 Like, this is the, the story of our time." 309 00:54:43.512 --> 00:54:53.452 And every time we, we meet with these people, and we're like, "Listen, if you start small and build a real sustainable subscriber base, like, you know, you don't have to go crazy. Start with four reporters. 310 00:54:53.532 --> 00:54:57.252 Start with a newsletter. Slowly build up. Get more and more revenue. 311 00:54:57.392 --> 00:55:06.792 Grow sustainably," as opposed to just starting with, like, a $10 million endowment, turning around a few years later and being like, "Hey, where'd that money go? Oh, I guess this doesn't work." 312 00:55:06.892 --> 00:55:17.232 Um, you can actually create something that organically, like, fits the market that you're in. And I don't think it's just that we're in New York why it's working. 313 00:55:17.652 --> 00:55:29.742 I think this could work-Not really in a Philly obviously, but like even smaller cities, um, 'cause people care and they want local news, and they understand the crisis, and they feel pride when these places grow. 314 00:55:30.182 --> 00:55:45.582 So as opposed to these like national, uh, news outlets, which are awesome and rock and, you know, cover specific topics, I think this is, you know, a scalable model that, um, if it had a little juice behind it, if, you know, there was like, "We wanna write a starter pack. 315 00:55:45.742 --> 00:55:58.182 We wanna be like, 'Here's what you should do, and here's what we figured out.'" And oh, cool, this like foundation gave you 100K to do it, and like that's all you're getting. I think that could work. 316 00:55:58.302 --> 00:56:10.302 [laughs] I'm, I'm like not... I don't feel like that's too crazy. Um, but, but so far every time we meet with people who like study this and, and are really committed to building local news, they are just like mystified. 317 00:56:10.342 --> 00:56:25.882 They're like, "What do you mean? What? Worker-owned? Like, I don't get it." So, uh, you know, I, I think there's a huge market for this type of local news. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's about, um, knowing, 318 00:56:27.242 --> 00:56:33.882 I think maybe, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's kinda what you're saying, Max, is like knowing the niche of people that you can best serve. 319 00:56:34.642 --> 00:56:42.662 Um, there are a billion tech websites out there, and none of them are doing it the same way that we're doing it, but they're all doing it their own way too. So, 320 00:56:43.562 --> 00:57:01.542 um, I think as long as that's kind of the, the mindset you go into it with is like, "I'm gonna be different than both where I came from and also everyone that's around me, um, in a way that people want," um, I think is a, a pretty safe way to kind of keep yourself from, um, duplicating or being duplicated. 321 00:57:02.102 --> 00:57:09.962 Um, and yeah, the subscriber, the subscription fatigue thing is, is real and it's like a concern, but it's also, it's like, it's like Jasper said, it's not a concern right now. 322 00:57:10.742 --> 00:57:19.792 Um, and no one really knows how it's gonna shake out. Like, this is all kind of new. Like, we're all kinda learning, so who knows what it's gonna look like in five years. Maybe it is like bundling and re-bundling. 323 00:57:20.602 --> 00:57:29.742 Um, but right now it's not a huge concern. And I love when people hit us up and are like, "Can you hop on the phone?" Like, paying that forward is fantastic. It's my favorite thing. 324 00:57:30.411 --> 00:57:41.082 Um, and you know, some of it actually happens and some of it doesn't. You know, it's, it's great when it does happen, but, um, you know, for whatever reason, if it doesn't, that was the best choice for them. 325 00:57:41.202 --> 00:57:49.102 It's hard to do one of these. [laughs] It's not like, um, it's not just like starting a medium. It's, it's a lot more complicated than that. 326 00:57:49.182 --> 00:57:57.762 So, um, I respect it completely when people are like, "Actually, that's not, um, for us right now." But when people actually do launch, I'm not like, "Oh, shit. Here comes another one." 327 00:57:58.302 --> 00:58:07.582 Um, I'm like, "Yeah, that's awesome. Like, they're doing something totally different than us, um, and that's fantastic for them. And that's fantastic for their readers." You know, usually they're filling some kind of... 328 00:58:07.602 --> 00:58:11.852 It's like Hearing Things just launched, and that's an old- Yeah... that's like old Pitchfork, um, I shouldn't say old Pitchfork. 329 00:58:11.852 --> 00:58:23.022 [laughs] That's, um, former Pitchfork, uh, journalists, and it's giving something different than Pitchfork. It's not new Pitchfork. It's giving something different. Um, and it's fantastic. 330 00:58:23.322 --> 00:58:37.802 So I think that's kind of, that's what works so far. Um, but who knows, you know? It's, it's very nascent, I guess. Yeah. Shout out Aftermath as well. Yeah, Aftermath. Which is doing similar stuff. Aftermath. Who else? 331 00:58:38.162 --> 00:58:46.232 Uh- We just did 'em a list. Yeah. Hearing- [laughs]... Hearing, Hearing Things is like super cool. Thanks. Yeah. You know, Jasper got a million of these emails, but it's always great to like- [laughs]... 332 00:58:46.242 --> 00:58:54.162 get an email being like, "We have an idea," and like you talk with somebody and then they're like, "Good luck." And then a few months later it's like, "We've launched," and that's- I love that... that's great. Yeah. 333 00:58:54.682 --> 00:59:09.502 Yeah. Yeah. So, um, Sequencer is the new pop science, uh, magazine. Uh, Maximum Funk, the podcast network, um, relaunched as a worker ownership, uh, under worker ownership. Um, there's a tabletop game spot that I- 334 00:59:10.842 --> 00:59:17.342 Rascal Dot News. Yes. Rascal Dot News. Um, so yeah, there's a, there's a nice little community building. We all sort of know each other, and yeah, it's... 335 00:59:17.522 --> 00:59:22.022 I, I don't wanna say it's blind leading the blind, because oftentimes I am at the front of the line of the blind leading the blind. 336 00:59:22.382 --> 00:59:33.682 But, you know, we're all doing our best and, and you know, I, I learn so much from, um, Before Ford and Hellgate as well. Um, like I learn from all those, um, ad guys that you guys work with. 337 00:59:33.742 --> 00:59:41.802 [laughs] So it's like you, or there's good cross-pollination. Um, one more question, and then we'll pass around for some Q&A for a little bit. 338 00:59:42.462 --> 00:59:52.882 Uh, Jasper, you've just put out recently the fourth annual report that's like very... I don't know if it's 10,000 words, but maybe close to it. Um, so thorough, breaking down numbers, et cetera. 339 00:59:53.022 --> 01:00:01.662 And I read that, um, when you put out the first one, it was something you were making internally anyways, and then there was some debate about should we put this out, should we not? 340 01:00:02.262 --> 01:00:15.402 Obviously you put it out, and you've kept putting it out. Um, what... I'm, I'm curious like why you wouldn't have put it out, and if there was any, if there was any regret internally even? Yeah. So I originally... 341 01:00:15.582 --> 01:00:25.062 So we don't have any outside shareholders, so we don't have like a, a structure of like quarterly meetings that, you know, we're like doing the summary of the last three quarters. [laughs] So yeah. 342 01:00:25.122 --> 01:00:31.662 Again, I come from a very corporate background, so it's just not funny to me that we don't have any readout, like accountability moments. 343 01:00:31.702 --> 01:00:37.042 And I was like, "Well, look, I'm accountable to all my co-owners here, so I'm just gonna start writing this thing about our business." 344 01:00:37.562 --> 01:00:42.442 And everyone, you know, found it to be very legible and was like, "Oh, well, should we just publish this?" 345 01:00:42.762 --> 01:00:51.142 And there were people who were like, "That's, there's a lot of stuff in here that's not other people's business necessarily." And I mean, the, the truth is they just got outvoted. 346 01:00:51.302 --> 01:00:59.662 It was just like, all right, the, the bulk of people want to publish this, so we're just gonna go ahead and publish it. And we got a really good, a good, a reaction, uh, on it. 347 01:00:59.762 --> 01:01:09.022 Um, you know, I, I think it drives loyalty with subscribers. It, it does drive some number of, of new subscribers. Um, probably not really anymore, but you know, loyalty is important. 348 01:01:09.062 --> 01:01:16.672 You know, it drives our own earned media PR cycles. Um, and I do, I do think it keeps us accountable, like what numbers show up there. Like I, I... 349 01:01:17.262 --> 01:01:24.742 going through the year, it's like, all right, this is a thing that I'm gonna have to write about. Um, and so, uh, like how, what, am I gonna be able to defend that? 350 01:01:25.112 --> 01:01:38.332 Um-Um, I don't know that there's really any, uh, regret except that I, uh, like, we publish it every October, November, and then some point in mid-August I wake up and I'm like, "Oh, shit, I gotta start-" Yeah. "... 351 01:01:38.352 --> 01:01:46.042 blanking that out again." Uh, but, but honestly, the, the day we publish it is one of the best days of the year for, for our business side. 352 01:01:46.362 --> 01:01:57.102 Just, you know, the sort of well wishes we get, the good, um, ideas that people send us. Yeah, there... We get plenty of bad ideas, so we just reply and say, "Thank you so much for sharing it," and then hit delete. 353 01:01:57.442 --> 01:02:06.482 But, you know, we, we do genuinely get good ideas and get good connections, and I'm out chasing a couple of things that were mentioned, was sort of mentioned offhand, and people were like, "Oh, do you want help with that?" 354 01:02:06.502 --> 01:02:15.082 I was like, "Yeah, absolutely." Uh, so, uh, it, it, it was a... It's, it was valuable and, you know, while I'm still working at Defector, I can basically promise we'll keep doing it. 355 01:02:16.002 --> 01:02:25.742 Well, we have some time to take questions from the audience, and we'll pass the mic so that we can hopefully capture this on the recording as well, and Dave will bring the mic to you. 356 01:02:25.862 --> 01:02:31.162 So if you have a question, raise your hand. Hi. I was wondering about, um... 357 01:02:31.222 --> 01:02:48.902 You were talking earlier about sort of cutting into the market share, the, like, idea of 1,000 flowers blooming, worker-owned media, journalism outlets becoming really common, and I was wondering what you thought of that in relation to the idea of, 358 01:02:50.482 --> 01:02:53.622 if I, I have to say it, I guess, content creators. 359 01:02:54.222 --> 01:03:11.422 Like, y- you were saying the example, Jasper, of, like, another independently-owned, worker-owned sports blog competing with Defector, but how would you view that in relation to, say, Jomboy or Sam 404, like Marcus Brownlee, same idea. 360 01:03:11.482 --> 01:03:22.182 Like, how would you view that? Um, it's an interesting question. I don't have a great answer as far as, like, competitors go. I would say w- we have... 361 01:03:23.682 --> 01:03:31.462 Without talking about anybody's business, we have been approached by people who have sort of upstart Substacks, and they're like, "Would you acquire me?" 362 01:03:31.762 --> 01:03:37.322 And it's basically just, like, adding a staff writer and adding, you know, whatever subscriber list they have. 363 01:03:37.372 --> 01:03:51.722 And so we sort of have a framework for talking about that, and whether we could, um, you know, bundle in by acquiring, um, a, a, a different thing that's, uh... But, but you know, that's not necessarily, uh, competitive. 364 01:03:51.942 --> 01:04:06.002 We, we've done the thing where we, like, look at their Substack list and compare it to our own list, and try to figure out how much overlap there is, and, uh, whether it would be worthwhile 'cause we're getting actual additive subscribers. 365 01:04:06.062 --> 01:04:07.502 That is just so case by case. 366 01:04:07.542 --> 01:04:19.362 We have seen one where it's like, "Oh, we're actually not adding anything because it's just our subscribers pay for you also," which is, you know, good that they're not, you know, like, using them as replacements, but, like, we're not getting a ton out of that. 367 01:04:19.482 --> 01:04:24.242 So, sorry, that was all a long way of not directly answering your question. I don't have a good answer for that. 368 01:04:24.762 --> 01:04:34.562 I think it would be cool if we actually saw that sort of, um, uh, solidarity of, of content creators coming out with their, their own thing. And of course, the way people consume sports is so different. 369 01:04:34.602 --> 01:04:41.692 It is something we're gonna have to reckon with eventually. Yeah, I think we're just kinda doing different things, I guess, is the way I see it. It's like, you know, we're doing 370 01:04:42.702 --> 01:04:48.442 journalism and they're doing content creation. It's like it's not really, it's not really a competition in that way. 371 01:04:48.562 --> 01:04:59.962 Um, and you know, it's like we, we would write about, we have written about Marcus Brownlee, and, like, it's all fair game if they're gonna, um, be content creators and do that full time. Um, and I think if... 372 01:05:00.022 --> 01:05:06.682 I think they would not enjoy it if they came onto 404. [laughs] It would be a very different, um, experience for them probably. 373 01:05:06.782 --> 01:05:19.902 So yeah, but it is, it's interesting that these are kind of two industries that are kinda growing up together. Yeah. Uh, New York Nico does his own thing- [laughs]... and it's cool. Uh, and that's different. 374 01:05:20.002 --> 01:05:20.242 I don't know. 375 01:05:20.302 --> 01:05:35.562 I have yet to see, like, cool content creators who are talking about the stuff that we're talking about, and that's probably because the idea of content creators is, like, as much of an expansion as possible, as many eyeballs as possible, and we are very specific to, like, "Listen, it's cool if you wanna read us outside of New York. 376 01:05:35.602 --> 01:05:47.042 You probably are not getting a lot of information you want." Uh, so but, but if there was some local, uh, content creators that were doing cool, interesting stuff, I mean, there's a great content creator that does... 377 01:05:47.142 --> 01:05:50.942 talks about the, uh, history of public housing, and rent regulations, and stuff like that. 378 01:05:50.962 --> 01:05:58.961 That's awe- You know, we actually reached out and we were like, "Hey, we should do something together," and they hit us with a bill and, uh- [laughs]... that was kind of the end of the conversation. 379 01:05:59.142 --> 01:06:03.642 In fact, no, we were, like, trying to interview them, and they hit us with a bill. And so I think that's 380 01:06:04.802 --> 01:06:17.742 a, a very different vibe than what we're going for, and maybe content creators need to, you know, it needs to be a, a more mature f- field for people to kinda understand that, like, you should show up and be interviewed. 381 01:06:18.602 --> 01:06:33.982 But until then, that's fine. Anybody else? So as a writer, I'm, I'm increasingly, um, concerned about the things that I write for the internet vanishing forever and, um, and about AI. 382 01:06:34.352 --> 01:06:44.482 I wonder if you guys could talk about conversations you've had about print and how much print, uh, plays into, you know, maybe... I'm sure you guys have talked about it and decided that it's not worth it. 383 01:06:44.522 --> 01:06:52.002 You can't make any money or whatever. But as a writer, I, I, I look for places that will publish my work [laughs] in print so that it might actually survive. You know? 384 01:06:53.472 --> 01:07:02.362 Uh, it, it pops up all the time in, in internal conversations. Like, what if we did a, a quarterly magazine? And in fact, lots of r- readers always write in and ask us if we would. 385 01:07:03.602 --> 01:07:07.842 I'm sort of waiting for somebody else to figure out this infrastructure, quite frankly. 386 01:07:07.902 --> 01:07:16.082 I mean, Hellgate did, did a, a really nice, um, you know, voter guide and I'm like, "Oh, okay, well, at, at least I know they know somebody who could do this." 387 01:07:16.162 --> 01:07:20.782 But it's just, it's never, like, the ROI never appears to be there on time or money. 388 01:07:21.002 --> 01:07:29.982 But, um, I think all of us who work in media do have some reverence for the printed page in a way that I do hope eventually we can have that as a nice to have. 389 01:07:30.622 --> 01:07:36.930 Yeah, and I think owning-The website [chuckles] takes away a lot of that fear of like, is this gonna disappear? 390 01:07:37.370 --> 01:07:52.490 I think we've all kind of-- We've seen it happen where, um, you know, these bigger outlets will just totally wipe their slates clean and delete articles in mass, which is so crazy, [chuckles] um, and painful to watch. 391 01:07:53.190 --> 01:08:02.390 Um, so yeah, we, we were already coming from this mindset of like, we need to be preserving everything we do, um, until it's under our control. And now that it is under our control, it's less of that anxiety. 392 01:08:02.450 --> 01:08:13.090 But, you know, it's like it's something could happen in, you know, 20 years and what happens to 404? It's like, where does that go? Um, you know, link rot's real. So 393 01:08:14.250 --> 01:08:25.610 yeah, I think that at least just like having it under our roof helps. Um, I don't know. I'd love to do a zine someday, but I think that's a different thing than like just the daily work. 394 01:08:26.270 --> 01:08:38.029 You know, I mean, we-- I, I also-- I will tell you, we have been approached by not the people who own the archives, but the people who have contributed to the archives and love the archives very much, of publications that are in limbo. 395 01:08:38.470 --> 01:08:46.790 They've asked us what it would-- whether we would be willing to take on the cost of hosting their archives if they were in some way able to acquire it. 396 01:08:47.290 --> 01:08:52.390 And I think that is just piggybacking on what Sam said, of just like there is a little bit more faith that like 397 01:08:53.310 --> 01:09:06.630 we're not gonna just be acquired by private equity and get scrapped, um, after, you know, they do not-- they're done with their AI-ification of our work. So, um, it's not something that keeps me up at night. Yeah. 398 01:09:06.930 --> 01:09:16.890 Uh, that being said, I haven't, you know, I should know. I don't know where our articles live. I don't know our servers. Like, you know, something catastrophic could happen tomorrow, and maybe it's all gone. 399 01:09:17.050 --> 01:09:27.690 We've gotta use the Internet Archive to try to find it. I should be more on top of that. But I, I don't know. I, I loved our like little sojourn into print. It ultimately did not cost a ton of money. 400 01:09:27.850 --> 01:09:38.970 People do this all the time. Um, you know, it's sad that the New York Post has a monopoly on being cheap to read on the subway. It has a lot to do with, uh, how people view the world. 401 01:09:39.330 --> 01:09:48.550 I think like losing AM New York is back, but losing the free newspapers, uh, and stuff that people could read every day, that was like, you know, pretty straightforward journalism. 402 01:09:48.750 --> 01:09:58.050 Get-getting you to know stuff that was going on. Especially like, you know, as a reporter, I would talk to people where they get their news and be like, "Oh, the free newspaper they give me on the way to the subway." 403 01:09:58.170 --> 01:10:06.570 Like, that's... Oh. And I think there's still a large community. Like, we still don't have Wi-Fi down under. [chuckles] So like, people want this stuff. 404 01:10:06.630 --> 01:10:09.770 So, you know, I think that would be like a fun and worthwhile thing. 405 01:10:09.810 --> 01:10:23.190 There was a moment when they were trying to figure out this tax credit, where instead of, um, accidentally, uh, forgetting to include nonprofits, they also put in that everything had to be print, uh, which we think has been obviated. 406 01:10:23.310 --> 01:10:33.830 But we were like, "Okay." We started gaming out like how much it would cost for us to do a like bi-weekly print edition that would be like pretty low, low lift. And it wasn't, it wasn't a killer. 407 01:10:33.950 --> 01:10:44.910 Um, what would be a killer is just like bringing somebody on board to like, uh, do layout and then distro. Um, but I'm excited to see what like The Onion does with the return to print. I think that's gonna be fun. 408 01:10:45.070 --> 01:10:55.610 I think people, you know, like vinyl. People like objects, and local news can really kinda win on a, you know... The L.A. Times when they were briefly flirting with being a good, you know, uh... 409 01:10:55.630 --> 01:10:57.530 They still do good journalism, and the journalists are great. 410 01:10:57.550 --> 01:11:08.790 But when they were flirting with like doing cool new projects, like started doing zines and like small, uh, print features about like, you know, um, Chicano history and stuff like that. 411 01:11:08.840 --> 01:11:19.590 And like you could buy a special edition. It was awesome and sick. Um, and you know, obviously like, uh, The New York Times has done that similarly, but, uh, there's a space for it. It's not expensive. 412 01:11:19.650 --> 01:11:26.510 It's just time-consuming. Yeah. So, uh, you're all worker-owned media outlets, right? 413 01:11:26.890 --> 01:11:38.650 Have you ever thought about expanding ownership to readers, kind of like how food co-ops have, uh, consumers that are owners or like REI? So I have been involved in, uh... 414 01:11:40.330 --> 01:11:51.670 I, I, I've dabbled in the worker cooperative space and, and I think that is a common conversation about, uh, what they call platform collectivism, platform cooperatism. 415 01:11:52.329 --> 01:12:07.270 Um, I think the answer for me is just that, uh, that is just another legal beast that I am not willing to, to consider taking on. But I think there's always interesting research in, you know, academics in that space. 416 01:12:07.310 --> 01:12:13.710 If somebody came to me and said, "Hey, we wanna do a pilot, and this is the legal framework that would sit in," I would, I would love to consider that. 417 01:12:14.470 --> 01:12:24.170 Yeah, I wouldn't be opposed to being like the Green Bay Packers, but, uh... Or at least giving them like a seat at the table. Uh, maybe not ownership, maybe like... I don't know. But they have the comment section. 418 01:12:24.710 --> 01:12:37.270 Uh, yeah, I, I don't know. I, I'd like to see, along with Jasper, like actually like how this would work. Um, but I'm not opposed. Yeah, I think the closest thing we have 419 01:12:38.370 --> 01:12:43.750 anywhere near that, and we're nowhere near that, we're still figuring out how to do this the normal way, [chuckles] 420 01:12:44.270 --> 01:12:52.290 but we have a tier called Superfans, and they pay, it's $1,000 a year, and part of that is you get to sit in on like meetings quarterly. 421 01:12:52.350 --> 01:12:57.710 But we're so swamped that it has not been quarterly on the dot, but we're gonna do one soon. Um, we've done a couple already. 422 01:12:57.790 --> 01:13:06.630 But you can come to this meeting, and it's not recorded, and it's like, it's just you and like the people who are in that tier and us, and you can ask us questions. You can kind of give us suggestions. 423 01:13:06.650 --> 01:13:13.830 You can say, you know, "I like this. I don't like that. I don't like it when you guys do this. I would like to help you g-guys do that." Um, that's not like co-ownership at all. 424 01:13:13.870 --> 01:13:15.310 It's totally different than what you're talking about. 425 01:13:15.370 --> 01:13:31.930 But like, it is nice to have, you know, that, that group that we know is paying attention and is like actually invested in what we're doing, um, to give us that kind of feedback in real time and not just like when they feel like throwing an email our way. 426 01:13:32.570 --> 01:13:39.130 Um, but yeah, that's a really interesting question. That would be an interesting kind of thought experiment, how we would do that. 427 01:13:39.190 --> 01:13:49.790 If anyone's listening and has existing research on this, [chuckles] feel free to send it in to the podcast- Yes... and we'll distribute it or address it on a future episode. But, um, thank you so much for coming. 428 01:13:49.850 --> 01:13:56.530 We're gonna wrap up now. If you wanna stick around and talk or, um, ask questions to the panelists, that's fine too. 429 01:13:56.810 --> 01:14:09.450 And thanks again for supporting the National Writers Union's news service organization, and I think this was a very, uh, strong argument in a lot of ways for, for why we're doing this. So thank you. 430 01:14:10.510 --> 01:14:22.110 [audience clapping] [rock music] Honey. It tastes just like it costs. 431 01:14:22.190 --> 01:14:29.150 [rock music] Honey